Data Analysis

Analysis of the data began at the early stages of data collection. Analysing the data concurrent with data collection facilitated a process that Miles et al., (2014, p. 70) refer to as “cycling back and forth between thinking about the existing data and generating strategies for collecting new data”. The process, they suggest, also serves as a “health corrective for built in blind spots”. Data analysis involved many of what Miles et al., (2014) refer to as “iterative cycles” of induction and deduction. Again, it is important to acknowledge that all stages of the research study were guided by my ontological and epistemological understandings of knowledge and by my philosophical stance on early childhood education.

In the second overarching stage of analysis, step 1 involved the coding of the data. My understanding of ‘a code’ is guided by Saldana (2016, p. 4), who describes a code as “a word or short phrase that symbolically assigns a summative, salient, essence capturing, and/or evocative attribute for a portion of language based or visual data”. The data sets from School A and School B were analysed as two separate case studies and followed the same stages and steps of analyses. The first data set to be coded was the teacher interviews. Having read the interview scripts in-depth several times, initial themes were identified through the first cycle of the coding process (Appendix 14-15). The process of noting codes and writing analytical memos was a very useful guide in supporting an analysis that was reflective and that was open to new inductions and deductions throughout all the stages of data analysis.

The next step in data analysis was applying codes to the classroom observational frameworks. The coding began with a re-reading of the already coded teacher interview transcripts and applying the codes identified in their transcripts to where they had a conceptual link within the observational data. Reflective analytical notes were made in

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the process of continual back and forth analysis across the observation transcripts and the teacher interview transcripts.

The next stage was to apply codes to the interview transcripts from the school principals. This began with a first cycle coding whereby the transcript was read through twice to identify emerging codes and to make a note of areas of interest. In the first cycle, fifteen codes were noted. A second cycle of coding was then carried out which involved identifying interrelated areas, grouping these together, and making memos of how they linked conceptually. The cycle of second coding reduced the number of codes from fifteen to nine (Appendix 23)

These nine codes were then examined to see how they related to the coded data of the teacher interviews and the observations. Coding is not a linear process where all of the data fits neatly into codes, rather, it is an ongoing process of moving back and forth between the different data sets looking for relationships. During the analysis, there was some data that was relevant to more than one code, these were noted as sub-codes and, where indicated, analytical memos were made (Appendix 21) A further cycle of coding was conducted to bring together the data from the teacher and principal interviews, as well as the classroom observations, under the assigned codes, and to facilitate what Cohen et al., (2011, p. 567) refer to as “a process that identifies any associations and links between the codes and to look at categories and any relationships between them”.

3.16.1 Emergence of a New Data Set

I felt it was important to be open to the possibility of having to add new data during the data analysis stage. During the interview of P(A) there was a discussion about the fact that the school was a DEIS school. The DEIS programme requires that each participating school has an action plan with set targets and plans across five key areas: literacy, numeracy, attendance, parents, and outside agencies. The DEIS action plan then became a relevant document to add to the data set for analysis, this is discussed in the next section.

3.16.2 Coding and Analysis of the DEIS School Plans

The DEIS school plan sets out the goals and objectives of the school and is directly linked to the goals and objectives of DEIS. The analyses of DEIS was guided by Richard and Morse (2013, p. 154) who suggest that coding is not just labelling, it is linking: “it leads you from the data to the idea and from the idea to all the data pertaining to that idea”. Building on this, Bryman (2016, p. 562) suggests that documents should be “viewed as

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linked to other documents because invariably they refer to and are in response to other documents”. Documents, Atkinson and Coffey (2011) suggest, are, texts written with distinctive purposes in mind and should not be seen as simply reflecting reality. Bryman (2016, p. 561) posits that documents are significant for developing a contextual understanding of the documents and their significance in relation to other data and, in some cases, can form part of the context or background that captures the culture of the organisation. Codes were assigned to the DEIS action plans that linked to the codes from the analysis of the data sets from the teacher interviews, the principal interviews, and the observation data, with some new codes emerging (Appendix 26 A-E).

3.16.3 Coding and Analysis of the School Websites

The final documents to be analysed were the school websites. Each page of the school website was copied into a word document and coded (Appendix 27). During the analysis and coding, analytical memos were made about how the data linked to the other coded data sets, and a note was made of areas of interest to be discussed.

3.16.4 Outcome of Data Analysis

Having conducted analysis of the various data sets (interview transcripts, classroom observational framework, DEIS school plans, and school websites) and engaged in the processes of reducing, merging and distilling codes, the final configuration of codes identified four overarching themes as follows:

• Pedagogy • Curriculum

• Teachers’ understanding of Aistear and the role of play • Challenges to enacting a new primary language curriculum

These themes form an organising structural framework for presenting the research findings in the chapter to follow.

3.17 Summary

This chapter discussed the research approach adopted in this study. It explained how, drawing on the theoretical perspectives of Braun et al., (2011) and Siraj-Blatchford et al., (2002) the researcher created a conceptual model to serve as a heuristic device to guide analysis of the data. It situated the study within a social constructivist paradigm that takes an interpretivist approach to the research endeavour. It discussed the reasoning behind

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the choice of a two-case study approach and described the processes of purposive sampling and defining the boundaries of the cases. Data was generated primarily, though not exclusively, through in depth interviewing and non-participant observations and these methods were described and discussed. Over the course of the study, the process of data analysis comprised two overarching stages, each of which encompassed a number of steps, and these were explained in detail. The researcher’s reflective stance and ethical issues were also considered.

The chapter to follow presents the study findings under the four themes identified in the process of data analysis: pedagogy; curriculum; teachers’ understanding of Aistear and the role of play; and, challenges to enacting a new primary language curriculum.

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